Las Vegas Nevada Real Estate News

INSPIRATION FOR TODAY:

"I wish people who have trouble communicating would just shut up."

~ Tom Lehrer

SIGNAL-TO-NOISE!

Much has already been written here about the modern notion of doing more and more in less and less time. This is somehow supposed to improve our lives, when we often simply end up fragmented and shell-shocked.

Hand-in-hand with the idea of doing more is communicating more. But because of email, cell phones and the like, we are expected to communicate more in less time, and in less space, and ultimately, in less words. Cell phone "texting" is surely the beginning of the end of written language as we know and understand it.

It's easy to lose sight of the fact that "communication" is not so much about the number of things we say, but how much is actually understood. Think back on instructors and speakers from whom you've enjoyed learning. There is probably at least one thing they all had in common: they spoke slowly, deliberately, and with focus.

Of course, successfully communicating a single thought can actually be quite a challenge. Often, it's just easier to spit out whatever comes into our heads and quickly hit the "send" button before we have to put any more thought into it. Oscar Wilde once slyly wrote to a friend, "I would have written a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time." Think about it!

Like trying to write a haiku verse, it can be difficult to distill our thoughts and ideas into a few carefully selected words that truly convey our meaning. But once we abandon such an effort, our communication just becomes so much "static." Be warned, there's a scientific definition coming: "Signal-to-noise ratio" - the power ratio between a signal (meaningful information) and the background noise. Ideally, our signals stand way out from our noise!

So the next time you are preparing to write or speak about a topic, take the time to choose your words carefully and judiciously, and deliver them in a deliberate manner. Remember that, regardless of what you are conveying, people perceive speakers who talk more slowly as actually being more knowledgeable than those who speak more quickly. And on that note, this column has gone on long enough!